As Max Saw It

by Louis Begley

He must have given such lessons many times. My inability to count spaces at a glance provoked in him tolerant amusement. He did not need to count at all. The small rapacious hand skimmed over the board moving his own men and, when I made mistakes, mine as well, stacking them up in neat piles and, without a pause, setting up a new game each time he won.

  We should play for money, he ventured. Small stakes and a handicap for you. It will force you to pay attention.

  I assured him my problem was not with concentration but arithmetic, and the will to win.

  That amused him.

  Charlie said you’re a law professor. Don’t they all know how to count?

  Almost all.

  We played a few more times, enough to let him conclude I had grasped the principles but would never be an interesting adversary. Then he put away the set, ran to the diving board, rose from it like a tawny bird, descended, and swam so fast and so beautifully that out of respect I remained at the pool’s edge, although, after so much sun, I too wanted to jump in. He understood, and stopping at the near end of the pool, called out, Come on, Professor Max, don’t worry about keeping up! You can’t. I’ve been in competitions since I was a kid.

  I obeyed, and as I swam back and forth in my plodding fashion, keeping well to the side, my curiosity about this strange, beautiful boy—he could hardly be more than sixteen—kept growing. He had the grace and easy kindness of a young prince. Was he one? The English he spoke was perfect, but it wasn’t necessarily American or British. No American boy I had ever met possessed such a manner.

  When we had dried off and sat down in the shade of a Roman umbrella, he explained, just as naturally as he had imparted to me the basic rules of backgammon, that he was on vacation from a boarding school near Lausanne, where his father had dropped him off—these were the words he used—three years earlier, after he and his mother divorced. He was the only child. The father went back to Beirut and his trading business with Saudi Arabia; the mother was in America, in a hospital.

  She’s crazy, you see. It began a couple of years before I went to Lausanne. She wouldn’t leave her room. Then one night she jumped out of the window. She hit the roof of the greenhouse and got pretty badly cut.

  I said that was horrible. He agreed. Then he smiled, making me wonder whether some of his cheerfulness wasn’t a series of nervous tics, like dance steps someone might execute for no reason.

  What about now? I asked him. Why are you here?

  He smiled again.

  Charlie brought me. I work for him, at his firm’s Geneva office. My dad got me the job. Dad knows Rodney Joyce too. They were spooks together after the war. It’s my summer training.

  LATER THAT DAY, during the long melancholy interval between the real and official end of an August afternoon, when at dusk la mosca cede a la zanzara and drinks are served, I wandered out to the front of the villa with a book, thinking I would read in the last of the sun. There was no sound except for the back and forth ping of a tennis ball. I guessed it was Rodney playing singles with some carefully chosen guest, perhaps Arthur, since Arthur had not opened when I knocked on the door of his room. One imagined siestas in shuttered bedrooms, then somewhat later tubs redolent of the expensive bath oils supplied by Edna, and women beginning to wonder how they would dress for dinner. I had expected to be alone, but there, like a beached whale on a wicker settee, a glass of white wine in hand, a bottle in a bucket of ice beside him, was Charlie. I saw him before he noticed me. He had no book or magazine; his eyes were fixed on the lake below us, perhaps on a boat making its way toward Dongo or Gravedona. When I said his name, he rose to greet me with a sort of abbreviated bear hug, then pressed me down into the other corner of the settee. Encased in white linen, his bulk struck me as prodigious. It wasn’t a former athlete’s fat; during the momentary embrace, I felt that his body was as hard as it seemed heavy. Perhaps my memory of him was faulty, perhaps time had playfully doubled his size. He poured a glass of wine, handed it to me, and attacked.

  I am surprised to see that you and Arthur travel around together. What a way to come to this place! Don’t you realize he is known everywhere as a snob and a rotter? You used to be an intellectual, someone really serious. What’s happened to you?

  I haven’t changed in that respect; that may be why I wouldn’t be here at all if Arthur hadn’t brought me. Why pick on him? Isn’t everybody here a snob? You and the Joyces, for instance? And what do you mean by calling him a rotter?

  Just that. You are out of your depth with him. He is spoiled to the core. His business deals are sharp, he squeezes his partners, all he cares about is being invited to places like this, and getting his name into gossip columns.

  Have you done business with him?

  Certainly not! My work is making sublime buildings, and they don’t come cheap, and they are not for common speculators. Your new pal has no use for anything that’s of good quality, never mind great art. It’s instinctive. He thinks quality is for suckers who subscribe to that magazine he publishes, which I use for toilet paper!

  He added sadly, You shouldn’t allow yourself to be seen with him.

  There are people one knows for long periods of time without any element of choice having entered into the matter. They pop up regularly in a defined context; when at some point they disappear, one doesn’t miss them. So far as I was concerned, Charlie belonged in that category. That he should take upon himself to be intrusive, and so harsh about Arthur, was outrageous. Whatever my own views about my traveling companion might be, and the foundations on which our relations reposed, I could think of no reason why Charlie should doubt that Arthur and I were friends. I had no doubt whatsoever that at the Rumorosa he was my real host. I told Charlie I found the prospect of continuing our conversation unpleasant and stood up to leave.

  Charlie seized my hand. He had tiny feet but his hands were huge, as if made to grasp oars, in scale with the rest of him.

  Don’t take offense. I have spoken with too much feeling, but there is a reason. Let’s walk toward the lake. I will explain. There may not be another opportunity.

  I found it difficult to refuse, and, to a degree, I wanted to know what he would say. We followed a path through a cypress grove to yet another terrace that ended at the edge of the water in a balustrade. On it, facing the lake, stood a row of Olympians, among them Hermes and Hercules and, next to the latter, perhaps by chance and perhaps because the patron who had commissioned this display enjoyed small ironies of the gods’ family relations, Ganymede. Meanwhile Charlie talked.

  You didn’t attend my wedding even though I invited that hairy-legged graduate student you were so inappropriately associated with. Perhaps you still are! That was a painful surprise for me, and for Diane too. You paid little attention, you have probably forgotten the effort I made to make sure that you met Diane immediately after our engagement. As soon as I learned that you would be in New York, I prevailed on her cousin Anson to include you in the party he gave for Diane; you and she hit it off at once; I had counted on that and asked you to dinner with us afterward at Giovanni’s. You declined, without a reason. That was a sign I failed to read, because as I said your brutality in not coming to the wedding, which was really very small, very intimate, considering how large Diane’s and my families are, took us by surprise. You hurt me very deeply.

  For God’s sake, Charlie, that was more than ten years ago! I meant no harm. Didn’t I write that I was sorry? What’s the connection between these imagined slights and poor Arthur?

  I did receive a sort of form letter—typed!—about a problem with your car. Perfect nonsense, you could have taken the train. And you sealed that expression of contempt by your wedding present—a majolica cachepot! Could one send such a thing to me! I smashed it at once.

  Had Charlie become insane? He advanced upon me with such ferocity that I found myself cornered, my back against the balustrade, on my right a monumental flowerpot planted with white geraniums. In the meantime, I had managed to recollect why I had so “bru
tally” skipped Charlie and Diane’s wedding. Kate and I had in fact come to New York, a friend of Kate’s being providentially absent so that we could spend the weekend in her apartment, with the firm intention of driving on Saturday after lunch to Short Hills, where the reception was to be held on the estate belonging to Diane’s grandparents. We had been told that the place resembled a game reserve, and we wanted to see it. At the time, though, my sexual obsession with Kate was at its height. We didn’t go out to lunch, made love instead on the friend’s Murphy bed, and fell sound asleep. By the time we awakened, it was possible, but not certain, that we could reach on time that—for us—obscure part of New Jersey. Rather than taking the chance, I made tuna-fish sandwiches, which we ate in bed, and, thus strengthened, we resumed our activities. I may have suggested to Kate that we dedicate them as an epithalamium to the happy couple.

  I did not think this ampler explanation would appease Charlie; besides, whatever might be the cause of his bizarre upset and resentment, I was not sure I wanted to make him feel better. The remark about Kate’s legs was a further outrage, even if I had also deplored her refusal—temporary as it turned out—to work against nature’s design with a safety razor or a hair remover.

  It has everything to do with Arthur, and your being here under his dishonoring auspices, he resumed. I rejoiced when Edna told me I would see you. Of course, she had the good taste and savoir faire not to reveal with whom! I might have vomited. In that past, which to you seems so dim, I elected you in petto, because I alone could see inside you something strong and hard that someday would be revealed in great glory, just as what I had hidden inside me has been revealed. For others—particularly Janie and Edna—you were just another pretentious little poseur wrapped around some tutor sipping tea at the Signet! Yes, I elected you in secret to be my secret friend. That was a gift of myself. Now perhaps you can understand my disappointment, no, bitter humiliation to see that you are still the sycophant!

  Had he not been so large and manifestly powerful, I would surely have hit him with one of Edna’s green metal chairs, which were conveniently placed nearby. Instead, unaccountably, with my right hand I clawed the soil inside the flowerpot. It was very wet; the gardener must have watered it that same afternoon. I took a fistful of the stuff and threw it at Charlie, aiming at his face. It landed at the level of his breast pocket, making a large, dripping stain. I continued to bombard him while he stared with his mouth wide open. Then, just as unaccountably, we both began to laugh, unable to stop, until tears ran down our cheeks. Quite exhausted, I undertook, as a token of reconciliation, to pat him on the shoulder, and left a long streak of dirt on his sleeve.

  All right, he said, that’s enough. You haven’t turned out badly after all.

  He sat down on one of the chairs I had contemplated braining him with, took out his pocket handkerchief, and thoughtfully brushed his suit.

  This will dry quite nicely, but I will get into something else when we go back to the house, he announced. Look, he pointed to the lake, we are at the confines of the ancient world. The villa of Pliny the Younger stands on the other shore. To your right, the murderous Alps. Greek gods guarding against Hannibal’s elephants. Here, vineyards, apiaries, sheep peacefully grazing in the meadows. Paradise for the learned and sensitive of heart. In me, everything has changed since those days when you took so little trouble to know me. I have been very lonely.

  I began to mumble something about having heard that he had divorced Diane. Immediately, he interrupted me.

  Preordained passion and resurrection. My true work as an artist and a man began at that moment. Someday, you will see the best of what I have done. I will explain the unifying, directing thought, and you will grasp it, because you are sensitive and intelligent. Henceforth, you are one of my intimates—they are very few! Stay with me when you wish. If you like France, I have a house in Vézelay almost as ancient as the basilica. I am building a nest in the trees above Rio. My apartment in New York is in the River House. I will send you a key and give instructions that you are to be admitted whenever you choose. This morning you met my young employee. Children and small animals are the best judges of character. He spoke well of you. Do not betray me again!

  Before I could reply, he offered me a cigar, clipped its end, helped me light it, lit one himself, put his arm through mine, and pulled me at a rapid pace toward the villa.

  AFTER MY BATH, I looked for Arthur again in his room. Once more, he wasn’t there. I found him downstairs, on the eastern terrace where our visit to the Rumorosa had begun. The villa was narrow and long—the living room and the gallery on the ground floor occupied its entire width—so that one seemed always to be going from one side of the house to the other. Rodney and Edna and the woman with red hair were there too. I sat down with them. The setting sun had filled the villa and made its windows glimmer like the lake’s water in the gentle ocher and yellow facade. Here the light was gray and cold.

  Rodney told me to make myself a whiskey. Arthur and he were still in tennis clothes. He had beaten Arthur in the last set and continued the analysis of tennis such as it had been taught to him: strong service and reliable, accurate baseline play.

  You fellows are getting to be as old as me, catching up, he told Arthur. Every time you rushed to the net I got you.

  I am off my game. I should only stay in houses where I can play. Please talk Laura into building a court or cutting down on her hospitality. She has invited me to Belluno for a week. I can’t resist the best wine and peasant food in Italy, but there won’t be any tennis. By the way, Max, you are coming too!

  So the red hair was called Laura. She addressed me. In a tenor voice, speaking rapid accented English, she assured me she absolutely counted on me; otherwise Arthur might not come, and she wanted Arthur to see some graphics that were just right for his office in Milan—in fact for any office. Did I have an office, she inquired. She would have things in Belluno, of course, but if I was still in Italy in September I might want to visit the gallery. To prevent my evident confusions getting the better of me, Edna informed me lazily from her couch that Laura’s gallery was in Milan; she sold fabulous new work.

  I was finding Laura attractive. Matter-of-fact, lively, and pleasant, without a hint of coiled-up aggressions that might be released at any moment, and so elegantly cared for—women like her did not turn up at the Cambridge dinner parties to which I was invited. I observed her varnished toenails. Wondering whether there was a link between Arthur and her, I said that my room in Langdell, at the Law School, could use something bright, and that if the invitation was for a date before I had to start teaching I would like to accept.

  There is no problem, we will go to Laura’s straight from here, declared Arthur. It’s a pleasant day’s drive. You can go in Laura’s car and I’ll follow. We’ll stop for lunch at Giancarlo and Bettina’s.

  Thus the next étape of my journey in Italy was settled. I experienced a strange mixture of well-being and lightheadedness, assisted, I supposed, by the large dose of whiskey I had poured into my glass. Somehow, from the world of those little hotels Kate culled in her library of Fodor’s guides and magazine clippings, to which we would rush in fear of losing our reservation, establishments where the room with beams and provincial furniture would turn out to have squashed mosquito stains on the wallpaper and a bed that squeaked, I had penetrated into a magical realm of cashless bounty and comfort. It was odd to think that neither Laura nor the Joyces seemed to find my presence within it a jarring surprise; if that impression was correct, why had I been kept out until this moment? Arthur must have said Open Sesame on my behalf. Could someone else have done it, or was it necessary that the revolution of Fortune’s wheel bring about a unique confluence of persons and time? And who had opened the gates for him, or the red-haired Laura? It was possible, it occurred to me, that I was naively mistaking cheerful good manners for gold, and would need to hurry to catch the train from Belluno to Milan and to my plane back to Boston before my visit became an embarras
sment. I decided to repress that small-town New England suspicion. Edna slapped at a mosquito and announced that we should go in until the wind from the lake rose—which it would, conveniently, just before dinner.

  As Arthur was about to follow the others, who were going up to change, I asked if he would stay a moment longer and talk with me.

  Gladly, he replied. Let’s sit down in the living room. We’ll have it to ourselves.

  I told him first that it had occurred to me I would be wrong to go to Belluno. Wouldn’t he rather be alone with Laura—what was the point of having an extra man in that sort of situation?

  Arthur laughed.

  It’s not even a situation. Besides, between now and the time we arrive there, Laura will have invited ten other people. It’s a big house: beautiful but run-down and informal, not like here. Real Italy—you will love it! She’ll be disappointed if you refuse. In Italy, law professors teach maybe once a week. They’re more like important lawyers; they give legal advice. Laura has little businesses in many places, a bit of money here and a bit there. Since you are a professor, she figures that if you come to her house as a guest she can ask you for free advice—probably about taxes! Anyway, where is the harm? She seems to like you.

  So there was no attachment between them. I felt a flash of desire and hope and thought that they too had better be repressed before I made a fool of myself.

  What about Charlie, I asked. How well do you know him? I hadn’t realized you knew him at all.

  Why? Has he been talking to you about me? I bet he tried to blacken my name.

  He certainly has some strong feelings.

  He’s got them about everything—especially winning prizes! You know our company has an investment in Città. Each year the magazine gives prizes for the five best new buildings. They are reviewed in the fall issue, with expensive photographs, essays by well-known critics—the works!—and then Città sponsors a scholarly exhibition at the MoMA and in Stuttgart. The thing started as a nice little routine, but now it’s considered a big deal. The editors propose the buildings, but the winners are picked by an outside jury. Two years ago I sat on the jury—I have been writing pieces for Città on industrial projects, so in Italy I am a critic. Of course, that isn’t really why I was picked. The editor-in-chief wanted to make a friendly gesture. Then it turned out that we didn’t give Charlie’s piece of dreck in Hamburg a prize, not even an honorable mention. Of course, later he got the Schnitzler Prize for it, which is what he really wanted, but in the meantime he made a huge fuss, wrote a five-page protest to the editors—we published highlights from it and our reply—and he even got the deans at Columbia and Yale to issue statements about how the whole thing was an anti-American outrage and so on. He sent a letter to me too saying I was personally to blame because I pull all the strings, so I wrote back saying I don’t answer crank mail! Since then he is polite when we meet, in this elaborate manner he has developed to go with being a great maestro, and behind my back he says the nonsense that gets repeated to me. When he arrived here, he told Edna that I have been seen picking up male prostitutes in Rome!